November 2009 | Jacob Emerick's Blog

Web Development Goals

I've always been a bit of a goal- and task- orientated person. The only thing I enjoy more than making a long to do list at the beginning of a week is crossing the items off of the list one at a time. Now that I'm a 'real adult' with a full time job and puppy, I decided to create a list of goals to aim for over the next five years. Most of these goals are under the realm of self-improvement; financial security, physical fitness, etc. I wanted to post about some of the web development related goals, both to give readers an idea of where I'm expecting my web skills (and, directly, personal web sites) to head in the future and to place additional pressure on myself to continually progress on the goals.

Learn new programming languages

Over the last couple of years I've managed to teach myself most of what I know of xHTML, CSS, SQL, PHP, and Javascript. However, there are a few languages that I want to learn that I've dabbled in the past. I use some XML, mostly in the form of KML and RSS, but I don't know much about XSL and XSLT. I'd like ...

• Tags:
• my site
• xml

The Last Waterfall Hike

My last hike for the waterfall project was on April 29, 2009. For the last two months I had been on a crazy schedule re-visiting all of the waterfalls I found last summer and collecting accurate coordinates with a new GPS unit as well as finding new falls within my radius to add to my site. Since I was leaving for Wisconsin the very next day, I decided to make this adventure legendary and visit Mulligan Falls.

Mulligan Falls is located northeast of the Silver Lake Basin outside of the remote Mulligan Plains. There are no trails or roads within a mile of the lowermost waterfall, which Faith and I had found last October. I had heard rumors of upper waterfalls, so I set an ambitious route that would take me several miles upstream. The area around Mulligan Creek is cluttered, rocky, and swampy, so I planned on the hike taking several hours.

Bridge over Mulligan Creek

I left early in the morning and made it to Ishpeming around 7:30 in the morning. After stopping for gas and some snacks, I headed north ...

• Tags:
• bushwhack
• mulligan plains
• waterfalls

Tips on Personal Sites

Over the last six months or so, I've found myself spending a large amount of time working on personal websites. What is a personal site? Well, as a web developer I work on three broad categories of websites: fulltime-job websites that have to work within branding and technological constraints, freelance projects with some flexibility on design and implementation, and personal projects that I don't get paid for. They can range from blogs to resources, and there are a couple of things I'd like to keep in mind while I work on them.

There's still a client involved

And it's me! The website is a representation of me as opposed to a company or project. This is nice in some regards, as I have complete control over the design and implementation of the site, but can also lead to easier procrastination and more fickle design changes. I try to treat these types of projects like a paying one, setting up deadlines and some restrictions on how long to spend tinkering with the design and layout. While it's nice to launch the perfect website, ...

• Tags:
• my site

Epic Hiking Adventures Plan

One of my fondest memories of my years in Houghton, MI is the waterfall project of 2008-2009. Even though it took an actual project to get me to explore the beautiful wilderness of the Upper Peninsula, I really looked forward to my hours of wandering through the woods. After the epic adventures of those months, living in Appleton, WI sometimes seems bland. Now that I have a job and regular hours, it seems like the right time to start a new project and enjoy the wild outdoors of the Upper Peninsula again.

When I started to plan out this new project I had several possibilities. I could go back to waterfalls, expanding the radius west to the Porcupine Mountains and south to Wisconsin border. Another option would be to switch to other geologic features, like mountain peaks or lakes, and create a sister site to my waterfalls one to document my visits. However, I decided that numerous hikes would end up being a hassle, especially since these types of projects involve dozens of sub-mile-long hikes and lots of driving in between. Instead, I decided to ...

• Tags:
• adventure
• my site